Skandapurana 4.3

Sūta said:
"O Lord, ruler of the past and future, great treasury of all knowledge,
having reached Kāśī, what did the gods do? Tell [me], O infallible one! (1)
Having studied this divine narrative, I do not attain satisfaction.
How was Agasti, the treasure-trove of austerities, petitioned by the gods? (2)
How did even the Vindhya, so lofty, return to its own natural state?
My mind is eager to bathe in the nectar-ocean of your speech." (3)
Having heard this entirely, the sage Vyāsa, son of Parāśara,
began to speak to his faithful disciple. (4)
The son of Parāśara said:
"Listen, O Sūta of great intellect, endowed with devotion and faith!
Let these boys also listen, beginning with Śuka and Vaiśampāyana. (5)
Then, having reached Vārāṇasī, the gods along with the great seers,
without delay, first of all at Maṇikarṇikā, in accordance with the injunctions, (6)
having immersed themselves together with their garments, then having performed the proper rites such as the twilight devotions,
having gratified the ancestors and others who are to be gratified with water containing kuśa grass, scents, and sesamum, (7)
and having gratified each and every one of those who dwell at the sacred ford
with jewels, gold, garments, horses, ornaments, and cows, (8)
and likewise with manifold vessels made of gold, silver, and other [materials],
with cooked foods sweet as nectar and rice cooked in milk with sugar, (9)
with dairy products, gifts of cooked food, gifts of grain in many ways,
with perfumes, sandal, camphor, betel, and charming chowries, (10)
with soft couches with cotton pillows, lamps, mirrors, and seats,
with litters, male and female servants, aerial chariots, cattle, and houses, (11)
with colourful flags and banners, and canopies beautiful as the moon,
and with the provision of annual maintenance along with household furnishings; (12)
and [they gratified] ascetics and practitioners of austerities with shoes and sandals,
with fitting silk cloth and fine garments, and with diverse colourful blankets, (13)
with staffs equipped with waterpots, with deer-skins,
with loincloths, high couches, and attendants and gold; (14)
with monasteries, with food for students, with great wealth for hospitality, (15)

with great collections of manuscripts and with livelihoods for scribes; (15)
with gifts of medicine in many forms and with charitable kitchens in great numbers;
with funds for drinking-water booths in the summer, with fuel for fires in small stoves in the winter; (16)
with much that is suited for the rainy season, for the sake of umbrellas, coverings, and the like;
with lamps for recitation at night, and with unguents for feet and other parts; (17)
and also the reciters of the Purāṇas in every temple with wealth;
with abundant funds for the performance of dance and singing in the temple; (18)
with lime-plaster work for the temples, with restorations in many ways,
with the cost of painting, and with decorations such as series of stage sets; (19)
with wave offerings, bdellium, fine incense of ten ingredients and the like,
with camphor wicks and the like, in abundance for the worship of the deity; (20)
with ceremonial baths of the five nectars, and also with fragrant ceremonial baths,
with mouth-perfumes for the deity, and with manifold gardens for the deity; (21)
for the sake of the great worship, for stringing garlands and the like at the three junctures of the day,
with sounds of instruments such as conches, kettledrums, and mṛdaṅga drums in the temple of Śiva; (22)
with bells, pitchers, pots, and other vessels used as bathing accessories,
with white drying-cloths, and with fragrant yakṣakardama paste; (23)
with recitations, fire-offerings, recitation of hymns, and loud chanting of the names of Śiva,
with movements accompanied by circular group dances and the like, and with circumambulations; (24)
with such and other extraordinary, manifold series of ritual acts,
having resided for five nights, and having visited many sacred fords, (25)
and having gratified the poor and the helpless, having bowed down to the all-pervading Viśveśvara,
and having thus fulfilled the pilgrimage with rules such as celibacy, (26)
having repeatedly seen Viśvanātha, praised him, and bowed to him,
they went, for the benefit of others, to the place where Agasti stays. (27)
Having established a liṅga under his own name and having made a water-basin before it,
he was reciting the Śatarudriya hymn with an unwavering mind. (28)
Seeing him from afar, like a second sun,
radiant everywhere with limbs resembling a blazing fire— (29)

Is it truly the submarine fire itself performing austerity in bodily form, / as motionless as a pillar, pure like the mind of the virtuous? / Or rather, having resorted to this brahminical body, do all splendors / cultivate the supreme abode to attain the state of absolute peace? / The sun burns intensely, and the fire itself is scorched, / through whose fierce austerity even the flickering [lightning] has become steady to this day! / In whose hermitage even beasts of prey are seen all around, / their forms turned gentle, having abandoned their inborn enmity: / The elephant fearlessly scratches the lion with its trunk; / the lion with its noble mane sleeps in the lap of the śarabha; / the boar, though his bristles stand on end, having left his herd, / moves about amidst the wild dogs, his gaze fixed on mustā grass, full of strength; / even the boar does not root up the earth as he does elsewhere, / restrained by fear because all of Kāśī is made of the liṅga; / taking a young pig onto its lap, oh, the hyena fondles it; / brushing aside the tiger cubs, a young fawn, / wagging its tail, drinks with frothy mouth from the tigress; / while a hairy bear sleeps, a monkey with restless fingers / seeks out lice again and again and eats them with the tips of his teeth; / the troop-leading baboons, black-bodied with red faces, / abandon the enmity natural to their species and disport together in one place; / hares frolic with wolves, continually rolling over their backs; / a mouse, its face twitching, scratches the ear of the cat; / curled in the train of a peacock's tail, a cat sleeps most peacefully; / a serpent rubs its throat against the throat of a peacock; / leaping and springing playfully, the mongoose rolls / on the back of the serpent's hood, abandoning the enmity natural to its race; / seeing a mouse moving right before its mouth, / the serpent, though blinded by hunger, does not seize it, nor does the mouse fear it;

seeing a doe giving birth, its eyes filled with compassion, / the tiger departs far away, averting its gaze, oh! / A tigress recounting the tiger's ways, and a doe the deer's behavior, / both speak with each other like female friends, full of joy; / even upon seeing a Śabara with an uplifted bow, the śambara deer, / bold, does not leave the path, and the man even scratches it; / the red deer, undisturbed, rubs against the wild buffalo; / a female yak measures her tail against the hair of a Śabara woman; / both this wild ox and the porcupine stand in one place, / restrained by the sage's splendor, having discarded intense malice; / and two rams, desiring victory, do not prepare for a head-butting fight; / even a jackal softly touches a young fawn with its paw; / beasts of prey graze on grass and bushes, for food [of prey] is an abode of disaster: / in both worlds it brings misery; fie on the eating of meat! / He who cooks meat for himself, deluded by sin, / shall dwell in hell for as many [years] as the creature had hairs; / the foolish who nourish their own lives with the lives of others, / after suffering in hells until the end of the kalpa, are eaten by those same [creatures] in turn; / meat is never to be eaten, even when one's life is in the throat; / if it must be eaten, then one's own flesh should be eaten, never another's; / better are these beasts of prey, through their devotion to [Agastya] the son of Mitra and Varuṇa, / whose mind is free from slaughter, than men intent on violence; / even the crane does not eat the fish moving before it in the pond; / the large fish do not devour the small fish; / on one side [are set] all meats, and on the other fish-flesh alone: / remembering this sacred tradition, do they therefore abandon fish? / Even the hawk, seeing a quail, turns its face away; / yet strange it is that even here honey-drinking bees wander about with tainted intent: / having long enjoyed the hells, addicted to drinking wine,

the honey-drinkers sing, seized with delusion again and again; / therefore in the Purāṇas a verse is traditionally sung, / its meaning made clear by knowers of the Purāṇas who know the truth of the Wielder of the Pināka: / 'Where is meat, and where is devotion to Śiva? Where is liquor, and where is the worship of Śiva? / Śaṃkara stays far from those devoted to liquor and meat.' / Indeed, without the grace of Śiva, delusion is nowhere destroyed; / therefore these bumblebees, bereft of Śiva, wander about. / Seeing even the beasts living in the hermitage [acting] like sages, / the gods thus realized: 'This is the power born of the sacred field, / for all these beasts dwelling here are to be liberated by the Lord of the Universe / at the time of death through the teaching of the Tāraka mantra. / Whoever dwells here with firm resolve, knowing the māhātmya of the sacred field, / the Lord of the Universe carries across, whether alive or dead. / Wise humans, knowing the secret of Avimukta, are liberated; / even ignorant beasts, freed from sins, are liberated.' / While the gods, filled with such wonder, proceeded toward the sage's hermitage, / they rejoiced exceedingly once more upon seeing a flock of birds: / A male crane, resting his neck motionless upon the neck of a female crane— / we think he is not asleep, but truly meditating upon the Lord of the Universe!

A female goose, scratching herself with the tips of her beak,

wards off with flutters of her wings the gander who desires her.

Hindered by the male cakravāka with shrieking cries,

she speaks: 'Is passion to be pursued even here, O best of lovers?'

A cuckoo perched in a bower hums sweetly and longing;

a female pigeon restrains him: 'The sage is in meditation; he will hear!'

Abandoning its cry, the peacock remains silent out of fear of that;

the cakora bird, feeding on moonlight, is as if observing a night-vow;

reciting essentials, oh, the female maina instructs the parrot:

'Śiva grants passage across the boundless ocean of worldly existence!'

With gentle notes, the cuckoo, emitting a soft tune,

declares: 'The Kali age and Death do not affect those who dwell in Kāśī!'

Having thus seen the behaviour of the beasts and birds, the gods

greatly reproached heaven, fraught with the misery of a sudden fall: // 74

"Better are these birds, beasts, and cattle residing in Kāśī,

for whom there is no return [to saṃsāra], than gods who are not freed from rebirth. // 75

We dwellers of heaven are by no means equal to the fallen who reside in Kāśī;

in Kāśī there is no fear of a fall, [whereas] in heaven there is great fear of a fall. // 76

Better is residence in the city of Kāśī even by observing month-long fasts and the like,

than a kingdom without enemies elsewhere, shaded beneath multifaceted royal umbrellas. // 77

The state that is attained effortlessly in Kāśī by hares and mosquitoes,

that state is not attained elsewhere even by yogins through the discipline of yoga. // 78

Better is a pauper in Vārāṇasī who is fearless even of Yama;

not so are we, the gods, who suffer such a condition even from a mountain! // 79

In an eighth part of Brahmā's day, Indra's realm perishes,

along with the world-protectors, the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. // 80

Even at the destruction of two parārdhas, one who resides in Kāśī does not perish;

therefore, by every effort, one should perform what brings the highest good in Kāśī. // 81

The joy that exists here in residing in Kāśī is not found in the pavilion of the universe;

if it were, then why would everyone yearn to reside in Kāśī? // 82

Whatever merit has been accumulated in thousands of other lives,

in exchange for that merit, residence here in Kāśī is obtained. // 83

Even if obtained, it would not lead to perfection if the three-eyed Lord were angered;

therefore, one should constantly take refuge in Viśveśvara, who is the refuge of all. // 84

The four aims of life known as virtue, wealth, desire, and liberation

are unbroken indeed in Kāśī, as nowhere else. // 85

Even out of indolence, whoever walks from his house to the temple of Viśveśvara,

his merit becomes greater than an Aśvamedha sacrifice at every step. // 86

Having bathed in the north-flowing [Gaṅgā], he who goes with supreme faith

for the darśana of the Lord of the Universe—there is no end to his spiritual welfare. // 87

From beholding, touching, bathing in, and sipping the water of the heavenly river,

from the twilight worship, muttered recitation, libation, and adoration of the deities, // 88

from beholding the five sacred fords, and then from seeing Viśveśvara,

by devout touching and worship, by offering incense, lamps, and other gifts, // 89

by circumambulations, recitations of hymns of praise, prostrations, and dances,

and by uttering: 'O God of gods, Mahādeva, Śambhu, Śiva, Śiva!' // 90

'O Dhūrjaṭi, Lord Blue-throated, Pināka-bearer, Moon-crested one!

O Trident-in-hand, Lord of the Universe, protect! Protect!' // 91

and from sitting in the Muktimaṇḍapikā for half a twinkling of an eye,

from discourses on virtue there and from listening to the Purāṇas, // 92

from performing the daily and other rites, and likewise from honoring guests,

and from helping others and the like, virtue increases more and more. // 93

Just as the moon in the bright fortnight grows digit by digit,

so the heap of virtue of those who dwell in Kāśī grows at every step. // 94

Its seed is faith; it is watered by water from the feet of brahmins; its branches are the fourteen branches of knowledge;

its flowers are wealth; its two fruits, gross and subtle, are desire and liberation: this tree of virtue is to be praised. // 95

Here Bhavānī is the bestower of all objects; here Ḍhuṇḍhi fulfills all desires;

at the time of death, the Lord of the Universe liberates all creatures here by teaching the mantra into their ears. // 96

In Kāśī virtue is four-footed; in Kāśī wealth is manifold;

in Kāśī pleasure is the sole ground of all joy; in Kāśī is the highest good—what is not here? // 97

Where Viśveśvara is, it is no wonder; he has the forms of virtue, wealth, desire, and immortality;

his own form is that whose form is the universe; therefore, the three worlds are not equal to Kāśī." // 98

Speaking thus, the gods beheld the sage's leaf hut,

rich with the fragrance of sacrificial smoke and surrounded by many young students, // 99

adorned with fawns that followed the hermit maidens to beg for a handful of śyāmāka grain,

holding the tips of kuśa grass seized in their mouths, // 100

surrounded, as it were, by nets in all directions to capture the deer of obstacles,

with wet bark garments and loincloths hanging from tree branches. // 1

Seeing the courtyard of the leaf hut stamped with the footprint-impressions

of Lopāmudrā, the crest-jewel of faithful wives, the gods bowed down, // 2

and [saw him] having concluded his absorption in meditation, holding a rosary at his ear,

seated upon a grass mat, majestic like Brahmā. // 3

Seeing Agastya before them, all the gods along with Indra,

with joyful faces, loudly cried out, “Victory! Victory!”

The sage rose up, seated them all as was appropriate,

welcomed them with blessings, and then asked the reason for their coming.

Vyāsa said:

Having heard this most meritorious narrative with devotion,

and having recited it or caused it to be recited before those observing vows and endowed with faith,

shaking off all sins, whether committed knowingly or unknowingly,

one would surely go to Śiva's city in a swan-coloured conveyance.

Thus ends the third chapter, named “The Description of Agastya's Hermitage”, in the first half of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa in the eighty-one-thousand-[verse] collection of the glorious Skandapurāṇa.